I Love You

In 2004 I was working as a salesman selling tickets for a minor league hockey team. I sat in a cube farm all day, everyone could hear each other’s conversations and I basically just made cold calls. Ninety percent of my business was done over the phone.

A lot of the time, the clients would be big fans of the team and liked to babble on and on about the players and how the team was playing. After a few minutes I would completely zone out and play on the internet while they spouted their vast knowledge of minor league hockey at me. “Mmm hmm…. Yeah…. Oh yeah…. Yup…. Right…. Mmm hmm… Totally….” Then when I would hear a break in the conversation I’d jump in with, “Sounds great. Let me know when you’re ready to buy something. Goodbye.”

Well this particular time I got stuck on the phone with Uber Super Fan who ranted to me for a good twenty minutes, about what, I have no idea. When a lull in the conversation finally came, I jumped in to cut him off, “Alright… Good talking to you… I love you…”

What the fuck? I love you? I don’t even tell my mother that at the end of a conversation. It’s just assumed. I love you!?

I slammed the phone down and suddenly, across the office, there was complete silence. Literally not a word was spoken for at least fifteen seconds. Then the girl in the cube next to me quietly asked, “Chip… Did you just tell that guy you loved him?”

Mortified, I transferred his account to someone else and never spoke to him again.

Needless to say, I never heard the end of it and every internal conversation I had for years after that ended with “I love you.”